heavy metal poisoning and expressive language disorder

learn how we can keep our children safe from harmful heavy metals

My son’s autism label was upgraded to expressive language disorder after heavy metal detoxification.

My son Luke was diagnosed with a mild form of autism, PDD to be exact, when he was three years old. I spent the next four years searching for answers as to what was really wrong with him, as I knew that it was something medical instead of autism. I finally stumbled upon the truth when Luke was seven years old and took him to an environmental doctor, who validated my theory that heavy metals from our farm and from vaccines damaged him.

A spect scan, which is kind-of like an x-ray of the brain, was done on Luke, which revealed that his brain was full of heavy metals.

We treated Luke for heavy metal poisoning, which entailed many rounds of chelation. About a year after Luke had started treated for removal of heavy metals, I took him to a developmental psychologist for reevaluation. She tested Luke extensively, then announced that Luke was no longer on the autism spectrum, though he did have expressive language disorder. She also went on to say that Luke is very intelligent, but also very manipulative. I came to realize what she meant by the manipulative part, but that is a story into itself for another day.

I was absolutely ecstatic that Luke was no longer considered autistic, after all those years of struggling to find answers, but I still had to understand about expressive language disorder. I mean, what exactly is expressive language disorder, and what causes it? And most importantly, how can we treat it?

According to the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, expressive language disorder means that a person has a hard time expressing him or herself. They usually can understand language, and can follow commands, but they have a hard time putting sentences together and expressing their thoughts and needs or desires. They tend to use pronouns incorrectly, have a smaller vocabulary and can’t form sentences that are easy for someone else to comprehend.

There are two types of expressive language disorder: developmental and acquired. Developmental expressive language disorder usually is detected around the time a child is learning to talk. There is no known cause for developmental expressive language disorder, and it usually disappears or greatly diminishes by the time the child is in high school. The treatment for developmental expressive language disorder is speech therapy.

The other type of expressive language disorder is acquired expressive language disorder, which usually develops after a brain injury, such as a stroke or a head injury. Acquired expressive language disorder can go away on its own if the injury is resolved, or it will stay with the person for life if the brain is never healed.

I would place Luke’s expressive language disorder in the acquired category. Both he and his twin got heavy metal poisoning in the form of mercury, lead and arsenic from me when I was pregnant with them, as ashamed as I am to say this. I renovated our old farm house when I was pregnant with them, not realizing that lead dust is invisible. And the water in our well was full of arsenic and mercury, which I didn’t find out until after Luke got diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning when we had our water tested for the second time, this time specifying “heavy metals.” The heavy metals killed Luke’s twin, and damaged Luke’s body, expressly his liver, GI tract and his brain.

I’m adding a link from the CDC, which explains the effect of lead on the brain in more detail. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/tools/know_the_facts.pdf

Along with the heavy metal detoxification, Luke also had years of speech therapy through the school systems. His speech has improved dramatically and he does a much better job of expressing himself, but you would be able to tell that he has something going on when you try to talk to him. He still has problems carrying on a conversation, and struggles to answer questions, but I have come to the conclusion that a lot of his trouble answering questions has to do with his manipulation (he hates to be asked a lot of questions, just as I do, but he acts like he can’t understand what you are asking of him when he gets tired of all the questions.)

I recently had him evaluated by a speech therapist, who told me that there are new techniques that can “blast” his speech. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

Luke wasn’t diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning until he was almost eight years old. If the heavy metals had been found when he was being evaluated for autism at the age of three, then maybe, just maybe, the toxic metals wouldn’t have done so much damage to his brain, and he would not have an expressive language disorder which, most likely, will linger throughout his life.

But these things weren’t known when Luke was a toddler.That’s why I’m here.  If I can help even one child overcome this lifetime disorder, then I will feel that I have contributed to the fight against autism.

And that would make me indescribably happy!

‘Til next time…

Scarlett

 

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Scarlett South is a registered nurse, an autism specialist and the author of Autistic or Toxic? How I Unlocked the Mystery of My Son's "Autism." But her proudest achievement is her adult son, whom was once considered severely autistic, with talks of being placed in an institution, and whom is now an independent and productive member of society! Scarlett is based in Florida.

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